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Bruce Yandle

Distinguished Adjunct Fellow

Bruce Yandle is a Distinguished Adjunct Fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He specializes in public choice, regulation, and free-market environmentalism. Yandle frequently briefs Capitol Hill policymakers on economic issues and lectures regularly in Mercatus programs for House and Senate staffers.

In 1983, Yandle developed the “Bootleggers and Baptists” political model, in which opposite moral positions lead to the same vote. He argued that bootleggers, who benefit financially from blue laws regulating the sale of alcohol, give support to Baptists advocating the desired public policy, because “when the Baptists go away, the Bootleggers lose their territory.” His forthcoming book, Bootleggers and Baptists: Explaining America’s Regulatory Saga, coauthored with economist Adam Smith, explores this topic further.

Yandle is dean emeritus of the Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Sciences and was executive director of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and senior economist on the President’s Council on Wage and Price Stability.

Yandle received his PhD and MBA from Georgia State University and his BA from Mercer University.

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